


Master of Puppets

by CeruleanHeart



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Lives, Billy has powers, Dreamsharing, Harringrove tag for later chapters this is the prologue, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post Season 3, Rating May Change, Season 3 Spoilers, Star-crossed, experiment!billy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 16:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19705456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeruleanHeart/pseuds/CeruleanHeart
Summary: The wave is seven feet high. But Billy remembers how to swim.When Billy wakes up, he has new powers but he's also in a new kind of prison. When Steve goes to sleep he sees his rival in his dreams.A shadow looms in the dark





	Master of Puppets

_The wave is seven feet high. But when it crashes down on Billy it has teeth and claws and instead of saltwater his mouth fills with black bile._

_The roar gurgling in his ears is not the rush of the tide. It drowns out every thought, every heartbeat as a current drags him down into the dark bottomless sea by his veins._

_For a moment there is horror, there is fear as Billy sinks and sinks and sinks._

_The wave is seven feet high. But Billy remembers how to swim. He starts kicking, starts splitting the water above him and around him with his arms and legs, struggling against the current and the roar in his ears._

_Above him, the underside of the surface is a mirror made of liquid silver. Billy sees himself in it, arms stretched out, almost reaching, almost touching his reflection-_

_and then recoils._

_The Billy in the mirror is the other one. His doppelganger, skin rotten and marbled by black veins, staring at him with empty eyes._

_“Do you think we’ll let you betray us?” Billy’s own voice says in the dead space of the void, lips of his reflection unmoving. “You are going to obey or we will make you pay.”_

_It’s the shadow, that thing that has been pulling his strings and taken everything, absolutely everything that was Billy’s life. His body, his sanity, his friends, sunlight._

_The surface is only an inch away and it has taken that too. But down here, all strings are cut. It’s just Billy and the seven-feet wave._

_And Billy, he knows how to swim. He knows of owning his body and his sanity, he knows of sunlight and the smile of his mother, knows of the gentle touch of a little girl, knows of happiness._

_“Nobody.” he croaks, vocal chords straining. How long has it been since he’s used them? Days? Months? Years? Time does not exist in the void. “NOBODY TELLS ME WHAT TO DO!”_

_The surface is one kick away and his shadow self is only that, a shadow._

_He breaks through the mirror fist-first, drives it through the other’s head and when Billy surfaces and fills his lungs with air_

.  
.  
.

the world shatters with a crash.

A siren goes off somewhere and something rains down on Billy. Glass? 

He blinks but he can’t see, everything is so bright. He can’t move, something is coiled around his legs and wrists. He can’t speak, a tube is shoved down his throat and his chest hurts.

There are people around him, he realizes, talking and screaming but he can only make out fuzzy silhouettes. Their voices are white noise and everything vibrates.

A sharp pain shoots through his arm and a few frantic heartbeats later the vibrating stops, the siren stops and the white noise turns into words.

“Sir, there was an outburst. His eyes are open and moving and we’re detecting massive brain activity.” a male voice says.

A hand touches his wrist, feels for his pulse. Billy is trapped in his body again, hooked up to wires, just a different type of strings.

“Good. I’m very satisfied with his progress. Keep him sedated for a while until he stabilizes.” the hand leaves his wrist and lands on his head instead. The blurry picture of a face swims into Billy’s vision. A man with white hair. Billy thinks maybe he’s smiling when he continues “Soon it will be time for you to wake up, 16. But for now, sleep a little longer.”  
  
Billy blinks again and then he’s back in the void. But this time there is no wave, no mirror-self. Just Billy and silence.

**Author's Note:**

> I just had to push out the prologue to get this fic going. I'm still recovering from s3.
> 
> The other chapters will be longer. Thanks for reading!! :)


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